Today I am discussing something a little different! I get lots of questions about how to start a blog, how to grow a following etc, and I want to post my social media strategy tips here to help you out!
Continuous Improvement Culture
The first and most important thing I want to discuss, is the mindset of constantly improving. At work and in business we talk about having a continuous improvement culture, and you need to adopt that same mindset for your brand! What is a continuous improvement culture? It is actively seeking out opportunities for improvement in the way you run your business.
A lot of people get so worried about just starting that they delay and never have the opportunity to grow and improve. When I started out, my blog, Instagram page, etc were a mess but they got better with time naturally! 5+ years later, I have really honed in on my “craft” but believe me when I say I am still learning something new each day! A great reminder of this, is to scroll to the bottom of anyone’s Instagram feed and see how far they’ve come over the years.
A great way to continuously learn and get better, is to educate yourself. Spend time googling and getting the perspective of others. One thing I enjoy are business podcasts and one of my personal favorites is Goal Digger.
Stay Consistent & Diversify
A huge part of my social media strategy is staying consistent! That means posting nearly every single day on the platforms you use. I personally use Instagram, TikTok, Pinterest and my styledjen.com website. Showing up is just the first step and producing quality content is the second step. Back to that continuous improvement culture, you need to be willing to experiment with what you are posting and see what performs the best. I find more candid videos do well on TikTok and curated photos do well on Instagram.
Diversifying your presence is super important in this day and age because it is so easy to lose access to accounts. I have seen many Instagram pages get shut down for violating a silly rule or get hacked. At the end of the day, my website is most important because I own that domain, unlike social media pages. Instagram has been slowly going downhill, so I am happy I have TikTok and Pinterest to fall back on. There is also rumblings of TikTok being shut down eventually due to their ownership in China. Just a few reminders of why it’s important to diversify and not put all your eggs in one basket!
Engage With Others
Finding others in your niche and following them and engaging with them is super important to not only grow your audience, but it also lets the algorithm know what your niche is. When the algorithm knows your niche, you’re likely to find followers/clients who will WANT to be there and follow you.
Connecting with other creators is important too because being in this world can be isolating and stressful at times. You also run into so many questions that no one in the “real world” can answer. Having those friends to bounce things off of helps a ton. I don’t know what I would do without my fellow fashion blogging friends!
Even more important than engaging with other creators, is engaging with your audience. Answer those comments and DMs as quick as possible! When someone asks me for a link or a sizing question, it’s my chance to convert someone into a loyal follower. You’d be surprised at how many bloggers fail in this aspect and they lose people who are loyal to them.
Go Above and Beyond with Collaborations
This is pretty self explanatory, but always put in your best work when working with a paying brand! This means following up on email in a timely manor, providing them with the content you created for them to reuse and always saying thank you! It’s a smaller world than you realize and you always want to uphold a good reputation to brands. Check out my post here on how to get brand deals as a new blogger.
A great way to get exposure to new followers and thank them for being there is by doing a giveaway with a brand or a small group within your niche. Small giveaways are my favorite because I truly love getting a chance to give back to my audience. I did a giveaway for Golden Goose sneakers with Italist recently and it was a lot of fun for both me and Italist!
Save Content Ideas & Recreate
Especially when you first start, it may be a challenge to figure out what sort of photos, videos or blog posts to post. Use other’s ideas as inspiration and save them in a spot to revisit when you are trying to create content. For example, I saw a TikTok video of 10 ways to wear leggings this winter. I saved that video to remind me later that I want to write a blog post about different leggings outfit ideas.
Show Your Audience Who You Are
One of the most important parts of my social media strategy is making sure my audience knows ME. You can go google and read all about it, but it’s a hugely important factor in marketing your brand (Goal Digger podcast mentioned above goes much more into detail on this topic). I like to do “fun facts about me” posts every once in a while as a chance to connect with others.
Stay Organized
My last factor for my social media strategy, is to figure out a way to stay organized! My dry erase board with a monthly calendar, where I write down my posting plan for each day is super helpful. I also keep an excel file where I organize all my brand collaborations, content ideas, list of blog posts, metrics and a list of outfit photos I have on my camera roll that need to be posted.
I shoot content well in advance and have over 100 outfits to post at any given time. Creating that buffer is great, because I never run out of outfits to post. When I got super sick with Corona Virus, I didn’t have to worry about going out and shooting outfit photos because I had a nice buffer!
These are all things that took me time to learn and refine. Once you start your rhythm you’ll get into your own groove that works for you! I hope these tips helped, and as always feel free to ask any questions if I didn’t cover something!
It wouldn’t be a blog post without an outfit photo! I wore this cute casual sweater to Il Bracco and it was the best Italian I’ve had in a long time!
Sizing reference: I am 5’4″ and typically XS in tops and 25 in bottoms.
Outfit Details:
Sweater, Jeans, Earrings (c/o), Necklace (c/o), Sunglasses, Boots, Bag
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